I just cannot get any of the renders from the render library to drag across to the surface/object that I have created.

I am interpreting this as the render material is not displaying after applying it? It won't, you still need to render. After applying a render material you should see a new tab in the Inspector named "Render", click on that tab and then "Advanced..." and another palette will pop up allowing you to adjust the render material. The changes will be displayed in the window on the right side of the palette, selecting "Drawing" will apply the changes directly to the object in the drawing. When this is complete go to the "PhotoRender" toolbar and render the scene.